Tales From The Toilet (A Star Wars Celebration Orlando Story)

This article was written by freelance photographer Denzel Eslinger. I (meaning Kaitlyn) did not go in the men’s room at SWCO. Feel free to share your amusing toilet stories with Denzel on his twitter.

Convention are funny places. You’ll always see and hear some unique things some will warm your heart, some will enrage you, but for me the ones that make you laugh are the moments I remember long after the chaos of six of ten blind boxes of Star Wars pins being Ezra and Jar Jar. At last weeks Star Wars Celebration in Orlando there was a rather unusual location for some of the best humor highlights of the show; the men’s room. No, not some swanky room filled with Jedi Master VIP’s, Stormtroopers and Slave Leias, but the other one filled with urinals and stalls. The place one usually tries to avoid at cons.

On day one a quick trip from the media room resulted in joining a full house and in typical male fashion there was no conversation taking place. The silence was quickly broken by a cell phone ringing out a quick tone, Lando Calrissian’s “Hello what have we here” which of course resulted in a collective outburst of laughter. The owner of the phone quickly replied to the laughs with a “Guys, it’s just my text message alert, really”, which brought another round of laughter. On a day that was rather stressful it was a brief moment to remind me this was supposed a fun event.

While day two went rather quietly on this front early on day three I found a father and son Sith Lord duo taking a quick break from the floor. While the father quickly took care of business he kept urging his son to at least try to go to pee, to the point of explaining how he couldn’t wait til the last minute because of the costume (probably my top reason not to cosplay). After the 3rd round of “I don’t have to go dad” and the final plea of “will you at least try?” a chorus of “use the Force” rang out from several directions around the room, which resulted in a good round of laughter. I have to imagine the robes are easier to deal with than the armor of a Storm Trooper.

It was the final day that brings us the closing chapter on this trilogy of bathroom humor. On busy days at a convention lines are nothing new and the men’s room is no exception. A line of Jedi and Sith had formed waiting for stalls. While I quickly took care of my reason for visiting I noticed they were all still standing there and finally one brave Jedi who clearly was tired of waiting stepped up with light saber in hand and started pushing on doors to see if they were actually occupied. I did wonder why he didn’t just use the force but that is a story for another day. The first door doesn’t budge (occupied), second door opens with just a tap, then the third opens, and finally the fourth opens and the line was gone. Clearly the force to go was great with that group.

This was my first convention attending in a working role so the bits of humor that were found sure did help to ease the stress of trying to get the right photo. So, the next time you need to go, remember humor is all in the mind of the Jedi.

Kaitlyn is a film nerd, a comic nerd, an all around nerd that has a love for female superheroes and independent cinema. When she isn't watching movies Kaitlyn loves fiction writing and watching political satire. Follow her on twitter @katiesmovies and @safaiagem on instagram. She's also a co-host at The Nerd Dome Podcast. Listen to it at http://www.nerddomepodcast.com